1990s

These women were part of the Europe-wide demonstration outside a meeting of European Community Foreign Ministers held at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire on 12 September 1992. They asked the EC to press de Klerk to take measures to end the violence in South Africa, so that negotiations for a democratic constitution could go ahead.

In September 1992 the AAM asked its supporters to take part in a month of action to press the de Klerk government to agree to an interim government and constituent assembly. It called for the maintenance of international sanctions and boycotts.  On 1 September the London AA Committee picketed Sainsbury’s headquarters, because Sainsbury’s sourced its ‘own label’ wines from South Africa. During the month AAM supporters distributed thousands of leaflets outside supermarkets asking shoppers to boycott South African goods.

In September 1992, in the aftermath of the massacre at Boipatong, the AAM organised a month of events calling for international support for negotiations for peace and democracy in South Africa. It argued that the consumer boycott must continue until the apartheid government agreed to a democratic constitution. This leaflet advertised a picket of the head office of Sainsbury’s supermarket chain.

At least 7,000 people died in political violence in South Africa between 1990 and 1992. Some of the most brutal attacks took place on trains carrying commuters from the Johannesburg townships. The killings were carried out by undercover units of the South African police and army and Zulu supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party. The AAM distributed this leaflet at London train stations. It asked British commuters to press the British government to support an international peace monitoring group in South Africa.

Every year in the late 1980s and 1990s the AAM held a prize-winning raffle to help fund its campaigns. In the photo AAM Chair Bob Hughes MP draws the winning ticket in the 1992 raffle, with staff members Mamta Singh, Vanessa Eyre and Gerard Omasta-Milsom looking on. The AAM depended on fund-raising initiatives like this to pay for its campaigns. It received no government grants and no significant funding from grant-giving bodies.

ELTSA (End Loans to Southern Africa) and the AAM insisted that there should be no new loans to South Africa until there was firm agreement on a democratic constitution. In 1992 the parastatal electricity company ESCOM tried to float a new bond issue on international money markets. It was forced to withdraw in the face of reluctance to lend and protests like this one organised by ELTSA.

Exeter AA Group held a vigil in the main shopping centre on 20 March 1993 to ask the British government to help end the violence in South Africa. It said Britain should support the sending of international peace monitors. It forwarded 500 letters to Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd from local people urging him to take action

Around 50 British local councils were represented at the sixth biennial conference of Local Authorities Against Apartheid in Manchester 25–26 March 1993. Moses Mayekiso, President of SANCO (South African National Civic Organisation) briefed the conference on plans for a new democratic local government system in South Africa. Councils pledged practical support in training observers for the April 1994 election. They pledged post-apartheid solidarity with all the countries of the Southern African region.